Digital Screen printing Denver

There have been a lot of advancements in the Silk screen printing process, which has been the primary reproduction process for t-shirts, jackets and nost all apparel, garment . clothing and textiles.

Digital has taken over in the are of art and printing of tee's however there is really no such thing as Digital screen printing. Screen printing still uses a Silk or poly mesh to create a stencil and a squeegee to pull think ink through it pushing it onto the garment in the shape of the stencil. A lot of the automatic t-shirt presses are digital, The machines that create the Screen stencil are digital and the artwork is created digital ... The screen and the squeegee however are not yet digital.

Digital Screen printing is actual a Direct Digital process in which a Digital print system like a large inkjet or bubble jet printer, Prints a digital image directly onto the jacket or hooded sweat. This process is great for doing limited runs of custom t-shirts that are full color... Where as Screen printing requires a stencil for every color know as a set up.... Six set ups for one custom shirt is just not cost effective..... Six set ups on a thousand shirts in not even a penny a shirt. Ans screen printing can mass produce Huge quantities of Bulk custom apparel and five times the speed of Digital garment printing.

Here at t-shirt printing Denver we offer all of the customized garment options...

Now it is easier, faster and more cost effective to get just one Custom made t-shirt,sweatshirt or Jacket in Full color ! Absolutly No minimum order, No art charge for supplied graphics, no set up or screen charges.....

IF you are looking for Cheap Bulk wholesale custome tee's we offer that to in the form of Screen Printing.

Why people are talking about this new t-shirt printing catchphrase?

Finally getting just a few full color garments at a cheap price is possible. here's why...

No minimum orders (Get just one full color custom made t-shirt)

Not set-up or screen charges

No mechanical art separations, films or art charges

No ink mixing or press cleanup

No on press registration

No charge for different size images

Larger format printing at the same price

Goes directly from computer to printer to garment (This means the shirts can be done on demand)

What makes t-shirt printing different then other Denver direct to garment print shops?

With thirty years as a denver t-shirt screen print & embroidery shop, We embraced on this technologie early and have been perfecting it for several years now. You will find that many of Denvers screen printers appear to offer it on their websites as the demand grows, but they do not actually do it in house. this means they have to add a markup in order to make a profit.

Our DTG Viper is a large format printer, printing Full color images 16" wide by almost 40" tall. it also uses a WIMS ( White ink management system) that allows us to print ANY color garment including blacks and dark shirts. This printer uses an Epsom 4800 print head for extreme detail and has a large platten that will print two adult shirts or four youth shirts in one pass allowing us to print more shirts faster.

As of the publishing of this article, every Denver based Direct to garment website we could find we are the only one both showing a price up front ( most offer to give you a quote) and charging the same price for any color & Size garment. ( We found one website with a STARTING price only to find out it was for white and light tee shirts only and there was an up-charge for shirts larger then one X large.

We've had time to listen to what people want and need and have worked hard to develop tools to assit you in getting and creating your own custom garment fast and affordably. Here are a few of the things we offer that other Denver t-shirt websites do not..

FREE on-line design lab software

Upload your own art and photo and create around it

Create multi color custom text that arches and bends

Database of full color clip art.

Change colors of clip art for custom color theory

Shows Prices of final project as you go

Same price for any color & size garment

Free online drawing and photo software for art creation

Free online templates for mock ups and marketing fliers

Pay via PayPal, credit card, Phone or even cash in person

Hire our professional designer artist to create a seriously custom illustration for usually the minimum charge ( $30.00)

I saw this on a tee shirt forum recently and thought I would try to explain the options you should find near you.

" I just wanted to create a single custom t-shirt from my photo that I embellished in photoshop. But after calling around to local screen print shops I was told by most that I had to order a whole bunch of them or at least a minimum of 24 and that the number of colors in my design would make it to expensive to to the " Screen " or " Set-Up" charges ??? &%@#$$%!@!! WTF?

Can't they just print off a transfer and heat press it to my garment? I remember places in the mall that used to do that 20 years ago... I would think that technology had made it even better, faster easier. Why can I not find anybody to print just one or two of my full color custom designs onto a t shirt or sweatshirt?

Thanks"

Sharon M.

T-shirt heat transfers are still around however in order for them to work on Dark or non light colored garments they have to be printed on a White patch. That patch is then cut out in the shape of your artwork or graphic so it is not just a square page on the shirt.

Screen printing dose require that a silk screen stencil be made for each of the Primary colors used.... there is a charge for the creation, set-up, registering, mixing the ink and printing each color. this is only cost effective when the one time charge is absorbed into a large number of goods... the more the quantity of shirts the less per shirt you pay.

Today's NEW technology is even better, faster, more colorful, longer lasting and easier... It is called Direct to garment or Digital Direct printing... This process use's a giant inkjet printer with special inks to digital print an image right from the computer to your shirt or ! hoodie! This is an extremely High resolution imaging process that results in an amazingly Bright colored, detailed final reproduction.

Keep in mind these are specialty printers, very expensive and not all are created equal.. " What does this mean to the basic person just wanting a single custom printed tee shirts?"

Many shops and websites that offer Direct to garment or substrate digital printing cannot print on dark or colored garments as the cheaper printers do not offer a white ink printing system,, the white ink is very thick and problematic to deal with. Other shops offer dark garment printing but the cheaper printer only images an 11" X 8" print area.

Here at t-shirt printing Denver, Located in beautiful Lakewood, Colorado just near Golden, We offer DTG Direct 2 garment printing on clothing and apparel items in a large format 16"X 32" Full Color on any color of textile! There are no set up charges, no art charges if you use our free online design lab, no minimum order, Get Just one full color custom garment with your graphic or photo.... This is done in just a couple of days and can be picked up right here at our colorado facility.. All work is done right here in house...

Our online website offers several tools to help you create your own custom t shirt art, such as the Photolab that is basically photoshop, and the design lab that let's you upload a photo or graphic and add clip art, fonts and text and customize it to your desire...

We are your one stop shop for all things custom apparel, We offer in house silk screen printing and embroidery services as well. Not an artist and want something REALY special and custom? We have an amazing on staff artist, Illustrator to create that killer image just for you.

Now that the new Digital direct garment printing has come of age people wonder if all garment should be printed with it?

There are some major differences between the two reproduction processes and each one has its merits and faults. Let me see if I can explain them to you in simple terms.

Silk screen printing.This process has been around for thousands of years. it is one of the oldest forms of reproduction invented in Asia as far back as 4000 years ago. Not much has changed with the process, Instead of using a silk screen we now use polyester to keep the cost down, Originally the stencil was hand painted onto each screen, nowadays we use computers to generate the film positives and a liquid light sensitive emulation much like film to image the stencil onto each screen.

_____SILK SCREEN PRINT PROCESS_______

PRO's......

1.) Durability. Because we use a squeegee with lots of pressure applied the plasitol ( Plastic) ink gets maximum penetration into the garment weave or fiber. When cured solid with heat the ink is guaranteed to outlast any woven fiber.2.) Color control. With silk screen printing each ink is mixed to the pantone standard and a color match can be guaranteed. with the exception of tertiary color builds. ( these are colors created on the garment when two or more colors mix together during printing.3.) Specialty inks.With the screen print process we can print custom inks like puff that swells up, Glitters, metal flakes & crystalline, Glow in the dark & neon or black light inks, color changing photo chromatic inks, clears and jells, Just to name a few.4.) Mass production.Silk screen printing is designed for mass production, It's all about quantity. Screen printing can produce dozens of shirts in the time it takes a digital bubble jet printer to print one shirt. These means major savings when ordering custom garments in quantity.

CON's....

1.) Set ups. For each color of ink printed, there needs to be a film and a silk screen stencil created, these in-turn get put an a press and the images are registered to fit each other. Ink is mixed and put in each screen. Most screen printers charge a set up fee to cover the cost associated with the lengthy process. While this may seem like a lot of money for say 12 shirts, when it is applied to a run of hundreds of shirts it equates to only a few cents per shirt. This is typically the reason most printers have a minimum order of say 12-24 pieces.

Urban Legend Con's :-P

Some people claim the plastisol ink prints a rubber plastic patch like Blob on shirts, Killing the breathability of the garment.... While this is typically possible and most likely to happen with inexperienced screen printers, there are a number of ways to insure this does not take place, from the way the art is designed to ink thinners and High mesh count screens that do not allow thick concentrations of ink. _____DIGITAL DIRECT 2 GARMENT_______

PRO's......

1.) No set up's!This means two things, No cost associated with films, screens and press set up, this now makes it affordable to print a limited amount including just one shirt or garment. Also the time involved in set ups means direct digital custom shirts can be produced very quickly. Many people even reefer to the process as Print On Demand for just this reason.

2.) Full digital color.

Printing four color process with screen printing is Very expensive and most shops only offer it on white shirts with a huge minimum order in the hundreds. This is due to the set up time quadrupling. Digital printers will print a photograph or computer graphic in Full color ( millions of tints and tones.)CON's....

1.) Not quantity driven.Because it takes the same amount of time to produce a single shirt and the process is much slower then screen printing there is not the vast savings as quantity's go up.

2.) No color matching. Printing four color process, ie Cyan, yellow, magenta and Black, can have mixed results for color matching, an exact Pantone match is impossible, many files will print completely different then what is seen on various digital monitors, and colors may be different each time a job is run.

3.) No specialty inks. Four color process does not generate neon colors like those designed with RGB, the printers do not print custom inks like glitters, neon's, color changing, metallic or glow in the dark.

So, to summarize it seems that the new Digital direct fills a specific need for full color low quantity runs that are affordable. Screen printing three full color garments would be too cost prohibitive. While it seems to fill a need for the so called print on demand, it's not very profitable to do it this way. Just like all the web sites that offer this service... Imagagine you sell shirts on your blog, you may only get three orders on week, and 73 the next.... These can be printed as the orders come in. With screen printing you need to order and have stock. But the profits from doing it that way can be five or six times greater then the digital print on demand.Screen printing is always the best choice for Quality goods in large numbers!

We get a lot of calls from people looking for one hour Custom tee shirts. Often they refer to the old days when there where shops in malls that did heat transfers. I know a lot of people just assume that tee shirts can be custom printed at the touch of a button in this digital computerized age.

Let me attempt to explain to you all the differences and options that the general person has when it comes to getting Custom decorated apparel or garments in a retail environment...

Most clothing decoration be it embroidery or screen printing is not offered in a retail environment. At least not Custom done work. It takes time to produce these things and Most shops are running hundreds of different jobs a day.

Heat transfers, a process where an image, photograph or art is printed onto a transfer sheet of pare via many different reproduction processes. Then latter applied to a garment with a heat press just when someone really wanted to buy one. Is an old process. It was rarely if ever Custom.

This is a process the common person can now do at home on their personal computer. You can create any artwork or design and print it onto transfer pare from you local office supply or craft shop. This Typically only works on light or white garments,. Unless you use a white transfer paper an cut out the deign by hand.

While I have heard that some one hour photo developing sops are offering heat transfers shirts that you create from your photo at a kiosk. Still it is light or white shirts only and does not stand up well to repeated washings.

With the new Digital Direct or DTG print on demand. The image is applied directly yo the garment or clothing item via an ink or bubble jet printer using a special Non toxic water based ink. Many of these systems employee a white in so that art can now be printed on any color of garment. This form of custom apparel imaging requires a high resolution quality computer graphic file or photo. It’s not something you can just take any low resolution image from the internet and use. So there is some time in creating the original art files needed.

It’s important to remember that shops that employee these Direct to garments systems typically have a full production list of work To be done. In other words it's not like they are in a mall just waiting for someone to bring in a shirt or art and have it created while they wait. I means this is a custom made product. We are however getting close to the day when you can get a custom made full color printed jacket, hoodie or tee from a little one hour booth on the mall.

It's Viper Time

There has been a huge demand for one off, one of a kind Full color large format Photographically printed apparel like hooded sweat shirts... Till now the screen or set up charges where just to much for small runs like One garment. and digital images with there thousands of colors where expensive to silk screen print.

Also the demand has been high for eco friendly and soft feeling water based inks..... While a couple of shops in Denver have been experimenting with Digital direct print on demand apparel decoration systems... None have the capability of printing White ink in a limed art to produce apparel imaging an ANY COLOR CLOTHING! The Rules have changed Denver..... It's here now!Design you own custom t-shirt hooded sweats&garments. Get just one printed item. No set up fees! Print Just one Full color, photographic quality garment. Large format printing area..... 16" X 45" any color garment! Local trusted veteran shop. Come see samples.t-shirtprintingdenver.com